Thursday, October 04, 2007

About time

I am just as unfamiliar with the concept of the Gregorian calendar as I am with the speed of time. However, I do know that today is Miss Soha Ali Khan's birthday, and the mere fact that I know someone's birthdate means that I must wish them.
So, happy birthday Miss Soha Ali Khan!

Apart from that, I am also aware that Markiv tagged me 22 days ago, telling me to write about ten things I miss from the 90s. Way back from the 90s.
Now, being unfamiliar with the concept of the Gregorian calendar, and being born in the decade that people feel is the new 70s, I may or may not be able to decipher my thoughts out clearly.

Anywho, here's the laydown.

Life without dedicated news channels
I don't even know where to start attacking this piece of poetry. You show shots from weird parties, people I don't know, and probably never will, and call it news. Then everyone wonders where my GK went. You show death like there's no tomorrow, and call it clean. Then critics attack movies and sitcoms for showing so much blood and gore. You show porn, semi-censored, but your commentary outdoes the visuals. Then people wonder why other people are so damn obscene. You call Rakhi Sawant every week, at a scheduled time. Then I wonder why so many people are informed these days. You feature clips from stand up comedy shows right after the original show is over on some other channel. Then I wonder why people pay for all these channels at all. It's all in the news, anyway.
Back in the 90s though, they didn't have much of this, because they didn't have so many news channels at all. They had their normal channels and a couple of hours of daily news.
I miss that.

Life without competitive coaching institutions
At this time of the new millennium, when coaching centers and tutors are spawning faster than the clones of Agent Smith (I know, it's so 2003), competition isn't the only thing rising. Not only have they armed us with knives to step into this cut-throat world, they've taught us how to cut throats, too.
There's no point in talking about how school is ultimately responsible for giving birth to tuitions, and I've said it a million times already.
However, way back in the 90s, you didn't have so many of these. Tuitions were meant for the boondock saints who were about to fail three years in a row, and were kept concealed.

Carelessness
Well, I was a kid way back in the 90s. I pretty much still am, but way back in the 90s, thought and action didn't much step in the same sentence. And way back in the 90s, when I was a kid, less thought to actions didn't do much harm either. You fight with a friend, you're back at playing with him in the next hour. You sleep and miss your favorite TV show, you get to see a re-run whenever it's on. You do whatever, you're back at whatever.

Carefulness
Well, I was a kid way back in the 90s. I pretty much still am, but way back in the 90s, I was careful. So was everyone else at that age. I remember doing all my homework and submitting it a couple of days before I really needed to. I recall sitting at the table to eat dinner every night. No later than 9 in the post meridiem. I also vaguely remember following this fitness regimen called go-outside-and-play-something-in-the-evening.
Boy, where has all the discipline gone?

No post-exam trauma
Since I was a kid in the 90s, examinations were only feared by senior citizens of the school...er, students. With no exams, not only were the vacations usefully consumed in doing nothing, there was no sudden guilt, pain, fear or illness following me after I went through a minor pop quiz.


8-bit/16-bit/DOS based games

I don't remember a day I left without guiding Dave to the next level. Sure, Halo is far superior, and I know GTA isn't just better, it's better, baby, but old skool still owns.


So without much understanding of the Gregorian calendar, I've gone ahead and reminisced about six things from the past, way back from the 90s, that I'd like to see in the future. And because of some thing or the other, I'm assuming Markiv will cut me some slack for not only taking so long to write but also for not writing it out to the finish line.

Sheep.

5 comments:

  1. @Markiv:
    That's it? That's all that I get?!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice... this mark sure knows how to get u to write...n write on intelligent topics...u've done justice to his choice of topic too... d best part is of cors..d news channels vala... u said all dat cud b said...

    "I recall sitting at the table to eat dinner every night."
    awww..accha baccha..!!! u give me complexes... neva in mah life was i disciplined... n dinner on tables...impossible..!

    n 'post xam trauma'..srsly..pehle toh farak bhi ni padta tha xams se...itna maazzzak udaya apne snrs ka thruout mah life...n now luk...wat mah life's reduced too..xamzzz..ek kal diya ek sat n den ek wed..den again sat..blah blah..!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Long time since I browsed the blog world....not much change.I got my whole thing refreshed and its all new now.Check it out,
    keep in touch abhas..

    Cheers
    Rahul.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't know whom to commend for this. Mark or You! Mark for asking you this brilliant question or You for writing up such brilliance in words.

    Mark indha question ku...nee obviously will say me!

    I don't know.. why after a long time I read A few hundred words and why I fell in love with it all over again. You have said what I have been keeping in store to say.

    Brilliant piece of writing. Brilliant. One of the best I have read till date. One of the best.I am jealous.

    ReplyDelete